Book of Life and Death

"Where am I!" Lin Shu struggled to open her eyes, but could only see a thick fog all around her, obscuring everything.

"What... happened to me? Why... no, I was caught in an explosion and an attack." Lin Shu recalled the blinding flash and the sound of the explosion. Even as a police officer in the Criminal Investigation Brigade, she had never truly witnessed such a scene, like a real battlefield.

"Then... then I think I—died?"

"Have I... already... died?"

"Then where is this?"

The thick fog condensed and moved with the wind, becoming slightly thinner, and Lin Shu gradually began to see her surroundings.

She found herself standing on a white expanse. Looking up, smoke and mist swirled, a hazy white fog covering the entire world and all of Lin Shu's vision. All around her was a vast sea of white mist.

She was wearing an ancient-style white robe, like an ancient undergarment, with disheveled hair and bare feet on this ground.

"What a strange place?" Lin Shu kept turning in circles, looking around, trying to figure out where she was.

At this moment, the white ground beneath her feet suddenly began to writhe, looking like black rivers flowing and squirming, covering the entire surface.

"What is this?" Lin Shu tiptoed in fear, constantly avoiding the places where the blackness flowed.

The existence that resembled black smoke and ink finally solidified, forming vertical characters on the white ground.

It was then that Lin Shu was shocked to discover that what was beneath her feet was not ground at all, but an incredibly vast ancient book, a book as huge as a mountain. The white pages were as smooth and flexible as white jade, emitting a faint glow.

And the blackness that appeared was the characters on the ancient book.

"How is this possible! Where is this? Hell?"

Lin Shu kept backing away, her feet rubbing against the paper beneath her. The touch felt more like hard jade. The surrounding mist kept closing in. She was terrified and wanted to escape this horrifying and eerie place, but found that she seemed to be treading water in the same spot.

"What is going on? Is this heaven? Or the underworld, Hell?" Lin Shu's face turned pale as she collapsed onto the ground, looking around helplessly, finally gazing up at the sky.

At this moment, she felt like an ant placed on a plate, with some terrifyingly powerful existence seemingly looking down at her from above the clouds, as if looking down at an ant on a tabletop.

And at this moment, she saw that the characters on the ground had finally solidified. They were ancient-looking characters, like the legendary bird-seal and Phoenix script, or ancient oracle bone script, but she could understand their meaning just by looking at them.

The characters looked as if they had been carved out with knives and axes, or written with a brush, full of a sharp and killing aura.

However, what made her feel even more horrified was that at the very top, it was not anything else, but—her name was written.

"Surname: Lin Shu"

"Birthday: Sixteenth day of the sixth month in the year of Yi Hai, at the hour of Mao!"

"Hometown: Yu Bei Wei Gang Lin County Xia Yang Town!"

Lin Shu seemed to have thought of something, and fear swept across the large expanse of ancient seal characters. She ran wildly across the white ground, looking towards the bottom.

Finally, she stopped, and immediately saw four large blood-red characters at the very bottom.

"Lifespan Exhausted!"

The blood-red characters looked as if they had been smeared with human blood, and at this moment, she could even see the blood-red flowing.

The blood-red characters seemed to have stamped an irresistible seal on Lin Shu's fate, telling her nakedly that she was already dead, her fate irreversible, and death irresistible.

"Dead? Really dead?" Although Lin Shu had already thought of it, she still felt disbelief at this moment, holding her disheveled hair, her eyes revealing a completely unacceptable expression.

"This... is, the legendary!"

"If the King of Hell wants you to die at the third watch, who dares to keep you until the fifth watch?"

Lin Shu was shocked, panicked, and wanted to question angrily, but in the end, she could only let out a bitter laugh, her whole body filled with a sense of powerlessness. Facing such an existence, an existence like a god or demon and a scene from mythology, that sense of mortal powerlessness was fully reflected in her.

"But... I..."

"I don't want to die!" Lin Shu sat cross-legged on the ground, looking around, then shouted towards the sky.

Her voice echoed in the air, but received no response.

"Lin Yu, big sister is really going to die this time!" Lin Shu knelt on the white book page, holding her face, tears streaming down.

"Haha! Perhaps I should say it's a sacrifice! Big sister is also considered to have died in the line of duty!" Thinking of her younger sister, Lin Shu cried and laughed at the same time, as if immersed in memories.

At this moment, the clouds in the sky were suddenly parted, and a light, as if cast down from the Immortal Realm, shone down from the peak of the clouds.

A giant white jade brush extended down from above the clouds, wiped away the four characters "Lifespan Exhausted," and added a line of large characters—Extended lifespan by one hundred and twenty years!

The brush fell, the clouds dispersed, the brush retracted, and the mist gathered.

The surrounding thick fog instantly enveloped Lin Shu. In the blink of an eye, she was seen dispersing with the clouds, disappearing from this ancient book that was like a mountain to her, disappearing from this strange and bizarre world.

This was within a huge palace building. White jade served as pillars, and gold as the roof. The dome was inlaid with various gems. Fang Xiu was wearing a Taoist robe, sitting in front of an antique desk.

He saw a white book placed in front of him. At this moment, on one page, Lin Shu's name was written. Fang Xiu put down his brush, and saw the page automatically roll back. He could see the names of Lin Housheng, Black Fiend, and Chen Jin written on the previous few pages.

And the book page completely closed automatically. He saw three ancient seal characters written on the black leather cover—Book of Life and Death!

Below the Book of Life and Death, Fang Xiu's name was written, as if declaring who the owner of this book was.

Fang Xiu stood up, picked up the Book of Life and Death, and stepped forward. He saw his whole body glide through the palace building like a wisp of smoke, arriving at the Necro Tree by the cliff behind.

He saw that the roots of the original Necro Tree extending into the sea of light now had two more. Fang Xiu released the Book of Life and Death, and immediately saw it turn into a ray of light and merge into the roots of the Necro Tree. It was itself a projection and incarnation of the Necro Tree's roots.

This so-called Book of Life and Death was precisely used to record the existences that had established a connection with the Necro Tree, and it was also a part of the Necro Tree.

At this time, there were only four names on the book page, and including Fang Xiu, there were only five.

"Perhaps one day, I will be able to write the names of everyone, of all living beings, of everything that exists in the world, onto it."

***

"It's too magical?"

"How is this possible? Unbelievable! Truly unbelievable!"

"She's undergoing secondary growth and development! She's like a baby, secreting various growth hormones, her body is adjusting like a precise instrument, it's like... like she's being reborn from a cocoon..." The voice sounded incredibly shocked, filled with the sense of a shattered worldview.

"The wounds are healing rapidly, the necrotic muscles and body tissues are also growing quickly, look... look... the four broken fingers are also regrowing, how is this possible, limb regeneration, the severed limbs are regenerating!"

"Unbelievable! It's truly unbelievable! If I hadn't seen this scene with my own eyes, I would never have believed it."

"This is the most valuable clinical data and experimental target, we..."

"No, she's from a special confidential department, you have to keep any thoughts you have to yourselves. The most important thing now is to seize this valuable opportunity to record all the medical records and the target's physical changes. This could be an important opportunity for us to open the door to the human body and genes."

In a daze, Lin Shu kept hearing people talking, and some blurry double images appeared before her eyes.

She wanted to scream, but she couldn't utter a sound. She wanted to sit up, but her body was completely out of her control.

"Ah!"

Lin Shu finally opened her eyes and immediately scrambled up, breathing heavily. The dazzling light around her and the light streaming in through the window made Lin Shu feel extremely uncomfortable.

She shielded her eyes and slowly looked at everything around her, feeling as if she were in a dream.

"Me? I'm alive again?" Lin Shu looked around in disbelief. She could see that this was a special ward, with seven or eight doctors surrounding her, and she also saw several nurses.

"Alright! The patient in Room 13 is awake!"

"The patient in Room 13 is awake!"

Cheers seemed to come from outside, and many people looked at Lin Shu excitedly, as if they were looking at some miracle or myth.

"Ah! Hiss hiss!" At this moment, Lin Shu felt as if countless ants were biting her all over her body, and a strong sensation of soreness, swelling, and pain came from her bone joints and muscles.

Only then did she see that both of her hands were wrapped in bandages. Looking further, she saw that her entire body was wrapped, like a zongzi.

At this moment, the door opened, and a middle-aged man, also wrapped in bandages all over, walked in. He looked about the same age as Lin Shu's father and was none other than Zhou Yang, Lin Shu's superior and the leader of the Abnormal Affairs Investigation Team.

As soon as Zhou Yang entered and saw Lin Shu sitting there in a daze, he immediately rushed over excitedly: "Xiao Lin? You're finally alive! It really worked, that pill really worked!"

"Ah!???" Lin Shu's face was also wrapped in bandages at this moment, and a look of confusion appeared in her eyes.